Understanding Permissions

This is a forum topic for discussing the article "Understanding Permissions":

http://www.elated.com/articles/understanding-permissions/

What are UNIX file permissions, and how do you set them? This tutorial explains it all.

Awesome tutorial. Thank you very much!

@viscro: You're welcome, thanks for the feedback

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Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Hi,

This post is wonderful. I usually do not read whole post/ Tutorial's / HowTo's on blogs however the preciseness and simplicity of the post made me read the whole post and actually understand the topic quite well (now just need to practically do it).

I wasn't going to sign up but the quality of the posts basically the whole site compelled me to sign up.

Thanks for making Internet better with your presence.

Wonderful stuff
Nuvo.

@nuvo: Thanks for your kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed reading the post!

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Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

As all the above comments; great job, simple & concise. HOWEVER, I was hoping to better understand the purpose of the permissions/attributes. Probably best for me to explain my issue...

EXAMPLE: I found your post after Googling: ftp "file attributes" for web folders.

MY PROBLEM: I wish to make a web folder available to all my clients ONLY for the purpose of them being able to download a zipped file (bundle of AntiVirus fixes).

How would you go about this? Is it not the correct use of folder permissions?

WHAT I'VE TRIED:
I've set the folder "/AV" to 444 i.e.'Read permission only' for Owner, Group and Public. Yet, I am unable to view the folder at my domain now?! How much do I need to set in order for you and other to be able to goto mywebsite.com/AV and view&download the zip file.

Thank in anticipation of your reply.
Steve Walters. Small Business Helper Limited.

[Edited by sbusinesshelper on 11-May-11 14:02]

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Kindest regards,

Steven Walters.
Small Business Helper Limited.
http://www.smehelper.com

@sbusinesshelper: You need to set execute permission on a folder in order to be able to read the folder's contents. Depending on your web server setup this might be 755 or 744.

You can set the file(s) within the folder to 644.

You pretty much always want to keep read/write permissions for the owner on files, and read/write/execute permissions for the owner on folders.

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Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Very good post. Making me sign up even says how good and interesting to read your article is. Keep it up


-Micz
R&D Engineer